“Yes, I can understand what Patricia must mean
to you”—­Mr. Charteris sighed, and
passed his hand over his forehead in a graceful fashion,—­“and
I, also, love her far too dearly to imperil her happiness.
I think that heaven never made a woman more worthy
to be loved. And I had hoped—­ah, well,
after all, we cannot utterly defy society! Its
prejudices, however unfounded, must be respected.
What would you have? This dunderheaded giantess
of a Mrs. Grundy condemns me to be miserable, and
I am powerless. The utmost I can do is to refrain
from whining over the unavoidable. And, Rudolph,
you have my word of honor that henceforth I shall
bear in mind more constantly my duty toward one of
my best and oldest friends. I have not dealt with
you quite honestly. I confess it, and I ask your
pardon.” Mr. Charteris held out his hand
to seal the compact.

“Word of honor?” queried Colonel Musgrave,
with an odd quizzing sort of fondness for the little
novelist, as the colonel took the proffered hand.
“Why, then, that is settled, and I am glad of
it. I told you, you know, it wouldn’t do.
See you at supper, I suppose?”

And Rudolph Musgrave glanced at the bath-house, turned
on his heel, and presently plunged into the beech
plantation, whistling cheerfully. The effect
of the melody was somewhat impaired by the apparent
necessity of breaking off, at intervals, in order
to smile.

The comedy had been admirably enacted, he considered,
on both sides; and he did not object to Jack Charteris’s
retiring with all the honors of war.

V

The colonel had not gone far, however, before he paused,
thrust both hands into his trousers’ pockets,
and stared down at the ground for a matter of five
minutes.

Musgrave shook his head. “After all,”
said he, “I can’t trust them. Patricia
is too erratic and too used to having her own way.
Jack will try to break off with her now, of course;
but Jack, where women are concerned, is as weak as
water. It is not a nice thing to do, but—­well!
one must fight fire with fire.”

Thereupon, he retraced his steps. When he had
come to the thin spot in the thicket, Rudolph Musgrave
left the path, and entered the shrubbery. There
he composedly sat down in the shadow of a small cedar.
The sight of his wife upon the beach in converse with
Mr. Charteris did not appear to surprise Colonel Musgrave.

Patricia was speaking quickly. She held a bedraggled
parasol in one hand. Her husband noted, with
a faint thrill of wonder, that, at times, and in a
rather unwholesome, elfish way, Patricia was actually
beautiful. Her big eyes glowed; they flashed with
changing lights as deep waters glitter in the sun;
her copper-colored hair seemed luminous, and her cheeks
flushed, arbutus-like. The soft, white stuff that
gowned her had the look of foam; against the gray
sky she seemed a freakish spirit in the act of vanishing.
For sky and water were all one lambent gray by this.
In the west was a thin smear of orange; but, for the
rest, the world was of a uniform and gleaming gray.
She and Charteris stood in the heart of a great pearl.